LEAF FALL. veins, and arteries, all admirably arranged, and, in its very construction, perceive that the leaf has a God, fail not to lift your heart to the Great Giver of all good, and praise him for the humble leaf. "To everything there is a season," and everything is beautiful in its season. The leaf has its season, and, in its season, is a beautiful object. But seasons have their limit, and their beautiful things an end. As the cool of the year comes on, go forth into the wayside, the park, or the forest, and the leaf is under your foot. Its beauty is gone, its life extinguished. It is a faded, withered, crumbling wreck. It returns to dust. Lift up your eye, and on every tree you behold the marks of decay. The verdure is passing from the leaf, the chilling breath of autumn has dried up its moisture, it fades, it withers, it falls. A few days more, and the forest will be dismantled; and, as you seek it again, the bare branches above, and the rustling leaf below, will affectingly remind you that "the fashion of this world passeth away." In the saddened aspect of the departing season, a voice will be heard addressing itself to the heart, and reminding you that “we all do fade as a leaf;" that "all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man is as the flower of grass." True, and as affecting as it is true: "We all do fade as a leaf." A lovely infant was reposing in the arms of a fond mother. It was her only one. She pressed it to her bosom, and imprinted kiss after kiss on its sweet face. She laid it down and went to the house of God. On her return, she pressed its throbbing head, now burning with fever, to her breast for the last time. On the morrow, the shroud, the coffin, and the frail flower with which-fitting emblems!—it was decked for the grave, told the sad tale. "We all do fade as a leaf." Just as she was blooming into womanhood, one of the children of the covenant was enfeebled by disease. A slight cough-" only a slight cough" -had gradually undermined the citadel of life, and laid her helpless on the bed of languishing. The bloom departed, and her pale, attenuated face told too plainly that the destroyer was near. Not long before, her faithful and pious mother had breathed her last breath on that same bed. The daughter prepared to follow her to a world where the fields are ever green, and the leaf does not fade. She sought for her departing spirit the grace of salvation, and was enabled to trust in a Redeemer's blood before she closed her eyes upon the world. Among those who came to mourn at her burial was a lovely sister, the youthful and beloved wife of a young husband, and the mother of a sweet babe. She returned to her habitation, and shortly after could leave it no more. 201 Gradually she faded away, and, with calm and holy resignation, breathed out her redeemed spirit into the hands of that Saviour in whom she had put all her trust. At leaf-fall she went down to the grave, and followed her sainted mother and sister to the land of perennial verdure. Yes, yes-" we all do fade as a leaf." One of the little ones of a young physician, watched and cared-for with all the solicitude of parental love, and favored with the best of medical skill, lay extended, a few months since, on the bed of death. Within three days from the hour of its departure, the youthful mother, in all her loveliness, withered and died. A month or two more, and her infant, a sweet babe just budding into life, and an only son, followed his mother and sister into the spirit-world. Scarcely had the tomb closed upon its remains, ere the bereaved husband and father, full of grace and honor, a ruling-elder in the house of God, beloved and wept by a large circle of friends and kindred, was welcomed to a place among the elders round about the throne above. Father, mother, son and daughter, all that was mortal of them, called to sleep the long, last sleep of death within two short months! Truly, truly-"We all do fade as a leaf." And so it is, week after week, day after day. Now I am kneeling by the side of a couch on which is extended the form of some idolized child, or adored parent, or endeared brother or sister, husband or wife; and then, I am commending the bereaved survivors, in the solemn funeral service, to the compassion of a gracious God and Saviour. Hundreds of my fellow-travelers have I thus attended, within these few years, in the last stage of their mortal pilgrimage. Many a beloved parishioner, many an interesting youth, whose very countenance I can now recall, and with whose religious history I have been familiar, have I accompanied down to the banks of the river. It seems but yesterday that we were taking sweet counsel together, and bowing at the altar of God in the endeared sanctuary. But they faded away as a leaf, and I see them no more. "Who has not lost a friend?" Who can look back over the fatal scenes of the summer of 1849, and say of his friends and kindred that with him began the season-" They are all here?" Alas, alas, the destroyer has left his mark. Few have wholly escaped. "Our eyes have seen the rosy light The dear delight of your eyes and heart, so cher ished once and so prized, the object of deepest interest on the earth, has faded, it may be, like the autumnal leaf, has withered away and departed, leaving you to endure the cold blasts of winter and its cheerless desolation alone. Alas-" We all do fade as a leaf" And is it so? Do we all fade as a leaf? Then let us learn to set a proper estimate on life. "I never dreamed," said a youthful, broken-hearted widow, "that my husband would be taken from me in youth, or in middle life. I expected to see him live to be an old man, and go gradually down to the grave. I never thought that I should live to close his eyes." So says many a fond wife whose endeared husband still lives. The mother, too, expects that her dear child will live to be a solace to her declining years, and to pillow her head as she sinks into her last sleep. The child fades like a leaf and the mother lives. "What is your life? it is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." What it was in that faded leaf, such it is in you and me. Just so brittle is the thread that holds us up from the grave; just so fleeting our days; just so feeble our hold on life. Like the flower we bloom, and as quickly fade; cut down like the grass, we wither away. "So fades the lovely blooming flower, Why, then, should we set our hearts on these fleeting vapors? Why embark the heart's full treasure in such earthen vessels? Why invest our whole stock in trade in such a venture? If the bark is wrecked, what becomes of your treasure? Your all is gone. You have nothing left -nothing to live for-nothing to interest you on earth. Life becomes a burden-not easily borne, nor easily laid aside. And, oh! how much greater the folly of those who set their hearts on glittering gold! The momentary pleasures of appetite are not to be named. We share them with the brutes. Let me reason with you for a moment, while the leaf is falling at our feet. How long will it be, think you, before your leaf shall wither? Already, perhaps, the bloom has left your face. You are not what you were. That recent sickness was but a premonition-the early leaf-fall, that tells of the coming frosts of winter. You have the sentence of death within yourself. Disease has found its way into your frame, and sapped the foundations of your health and strength. So it is with me, and so with you. Every seated pain; every new form of pain; your watchings by night; your pulmonary irritations by day, all remind you that the time is short. The pale face, too, of that dear friend, whose lifeless form lay shrouded and coffined for the grave, told too plainly the affecting truth-" We all do fade as a leaf." You may not apprehend a speedy termination of that life which all Scripture and experience declare to be "but a vapor." You are hale and hearty. You feel no infirmity of body. Why should you be afraid? Ah! your very want of apprehension may be one of the premonitory symptoms. You may go forth to-day into the garden of flowers, and the splendor of the dahlia may greet and gratify you in its numberless varieties, presenting a vivid and pleasing contrast to the deep green of its rich and healthful foliage. To-morrow, it may be, that green leaf has gathered, blackness, those splendid blossoms are blighted, and all that splendor blasted. A sudden and severe frost has intervened, and one short night puts an end to the season of bloom. So have I often seen it, not only in my own garden of flowers, but in the garden of the Lord, among the plants of grace. The leaf accomplishes the purpose for which it was created, and then it fades and withers away. But many, who never, perhaps, bestowed a passing thought on the humble leaf-that silent and truthful monitor-have yet the whole work of life to do. Be admonished, ye loiterers! and receive the lesson of the season. Could nothing but death arouse you? Was it needful that the valued friend, the endeared idol, should be torn from you, before you waked out of sleep? Let the admonition be effectual. Sleep no more. Work "while it is day. The night cometh in which no man can work." Yes," we all do fade as a leaf." Ere the forest is wholly bared by the approaching frosts, many a leaf will fade and fall. Ere the winter has fully set in, how many fading cheeks will rest on "the lap of earth!" Soon it will be said of this one and that" She is gone!" Gone! but whither? Happy will you be, if your sorrows do but lead you to seek consolations in the religion, in the love of Jesus, the friend of sinners-the neverfailing friend. Then, with the dear friends that have gone before you, transplanted in a better soil, you shall bloom for ever in the paradise of God, where your leaf shall not wither-where it shall never fade. "It matters little at what hour o' the day The righteous falls asleep; death cannot come In the festive hall is an Exile seen, His wife and child are by his side, A thousand lights along the board, Climbing the pillars, and all between, All that can please the eye or ear, Smell, taste, or touch, (at once) is gathered there. All but the Exile's heart is gay, That sick, and sad, and far away! II. The passing joys around him seen, A mist that rises with the sun, He thinks of Midian's pleasant plain, He thinks of her sweet, sad face who nursed He sees no sight, he hears no sound, A scalding tear from either eye, Trickles down slow and silently. III. "Tears at a banquet! Hadad, WAKE!" "A talent of Ophir's gold to know The only wife more fair than thine, A nobler stripling than thy son, Next to these old mysterious walls, Lackest thou riches or honor still? The morn shall see thee richer grown, IV. Down Hadad's manly cheeks again That look along his bosom-chords, O could she look within, and prove Like swelling surges of the sea His bosom heayes in agony. TO MY CHILD. WHO, with young morning's beam, bursts on my sight, 'Tis thee, my darling child! And who, when evening's shade falls o'er each flower, Like angel sent to bless the hallow'd hour? And when through shadowy woods I lonely roam, Whose silvery voice recalls my steps to home? And as I wander by the sea-girt shore, And thoughts on thoughts, like waves, come rolling o'er, Thine, thine! my beauteous child! Or if on mossy bank I calm recline, And all my thoughts to nature's world resign, When from this world retires the god of light, And darkness takes the loved ones from our sight, And as I kneel my Maker's throne before, For whom do I eternal gifts implore ? For thee, for thee, my child! And when my soul shall wing its flight to God, Whose hand shall lay my head beneath the sod THE MOTHER OF JOHN NEWTON. BY PROF. E. B. HACKETT, NEWTON THEO. SEM. If it were inquired of us, whose influence upon the world's destiny has, in our opinion, already been, and will hereafter be felt as deeply, perhaps, as that of any mere human being who has ever lived, instead of naming any one who has sat upon a throne, or has counseled kings, or has fought battles, or has been eloquent, or learned, that person, our answer would be, is a certain female, whose ancestral name we have been able by no research to discover, the period of whose birth happened, as we find it incidentally mentioned, on the 11th of July, 1782. And who, the reader perhaps is ready to ask, was this unknown but wonderful woman? What page of history has recorded her deeds? What city, like the wife of Themistocles, did she rule, by ruling in the heart of her husband? Or what monarch, like the favorites of the second Charles of England, or Louis the Fifteenth of France, did she captivate by her charms and compel to lay his sceptre at her feet? The obscure woman to whom we refer as having exercised so unparalleled an influence on the destinies of the human race, employed no such arts as these. The MOTHER OF JOHN NEWTON discharged faithfully her obligations as a Christian parent. This is the most that we know respecting her. The consequences arising from this faithfulness may not be greater, probably they are not greater than those which stand connected with many other cases of an equally strict discharge of duty. It is not often, however, that the history of this connection is laid open so fully to the inspection of human eyes; and we therefore ask attention to it as an instructive illustration of the benefits which a single pious female may bestow the world. upon That the conversion of her son was owing, under God, to the prayers and instruction of Mrs. Newton, it is impossible to doubt. He was but seven years of age at the period of her death; and yet retained so strong an impression of her character, that a course of the most unrestrained abandonment to sin could not wholly efface her image from his mind. It followed him amid all the scenes of profligacy into which he plunged, and imposed upon him a restraint, from which he could at no time altogether escape, and which in the end proved the means of his recovery to a life of piety and usefulness. It is unnecessary to pass the life of this remarkable man in minute review before us. He was more than forty years, it is well known, one of the most laborious and successful preachers of the Gospel that have in modern times blessed the church. There are few men, who have been instrumental of turning so many souls to God, as were converted by the personal efforts of his ministry. This, however, was but one of his departments of action. He served the cause of the Redeemer with equal effect, perhaps, in other ways. What writings of a religious nature are more widely circulated than many of the productions of Newton, or are superior to them in the excellence of their tendency? He possessed also talents for conversation, which enabled him to diffuse over the very extended sphere of his acquaintance an influence, which was the acknowledged cause, in a multitude of cases, of the most happy results. All the benefits now arising from these and similar labors of Newton, we are to set down, in accordance with the view which we are taking, to the faithfulness of his mother. Let us now proceed a step farther, and trace briefly some of the consequences of the life of this devoted man, as they are seen flowing in particular channels. We shall select only the more conspicuous cases. There can be no doubt that we are indebted mainly to the agency of Newton for all the important services which the celebrated Dr. Buchanan has rendered to the church and the world. It was at a time when the future author of the "Christian Researches in Asia" was in a state, not of utter indifference, indeed, yet of great looseness of views in regard to religion, and still worse indecision of conduct, that he for the first time heard the preaching of this eminent minister of Christ. It awakened his already excited mind still more deeply. He embraced the earliest opportunity of a personal interview with the preacher, and was soon after this not only established in the belief and practice of Christian principles, but preparing, by a cours of |